This blog follows the history of psychiatry

New issue – PSN

A new issue of Psychiatrie, Sciences humaines, Neurosciences is now out and includes an editorial by T. Haustgen entitled “La psychiatrie, une science américaine?”, a discussion between Steeves Demazeux and the philosopher Dominic Murphy on the foundations of philosophy, as well as the following original articles:

The 10th version of the International Classification of Disease (ICD-10) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is currently in a revision phase. This article recommends a possible method of updating of the group “Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders,” which attempts to reconcile the three demands made by the WHO for the new ICD-11: updating of classification practices, ease of use and destigmatisation of the terminology.

A great revolution in the field of neuroscience started in the 1940s and took place after the Second World War. Before the War, the fundamental questions at stake dealt with the nature of neurotransmission, chemical or electrical. The first turning point occurred in the distinguished field of neurophysiology, where a better understanding of neuronal electrogenesis and fine dissections of nervous networks followed the introduction of the new intracellular recording technique. This technique is associated with biophysics, electron microscopy and ultracentrifugation. Consequently, the chemical theory of neurotransmission is uniformly adopted with the emergence of the quantal theory and the vesicular theory. There is a new opportunity for the discovery of neurotransmitters with the help of biochemical methods. Noradrenergic and aminergic paths are described with novel histological techniques, whereas electrophysiology is used to find their functions. All disciplines work together in the study of the synaptic organisations of nerve centres and local inhibition phenomena. Neuronal sciences adopt neuropharmacology to create a novel neurochemistry. New dissection procedures, morphological network tracing tools and surgical techniques offer novel ways of intervention and manipulation. These innovations of the 1950s and 1960s are central in building a new international community unified by the American neuroscience movement.

The Boston School was a school of thought that gave birth, in the 1890s in the USA, to psychology as an academic discipline and as a practising profession. Some of the ideas and therapeutic attitudes of the school’s members will be examined from a historical perspective. The approach will be compared briefly with that of current psychological practice in France. The aim of this comparison is to get an overview of the development of psychology from its initial progress in the USA to current practice in France and from earlier European influences to the present American contribution. Thus, we can explore the legacy of the Boston School and some more recent potential influences. In comparison with modern psychologists how did the members of the Boston School regard psychology, mental life and psychotherapies?

Antonio Damasio’s works have brought emotions into line with current trends in neuroscience. They are conceived as the addition, to a perception, of the somatic effects it has induced. Nevertheless, this continuous and relatively steady process of body perception has also led to the less-known hypothesis of the “neural self.” Behind the explicit and apparently contradictory reference to William James and Sigmund Freud, there lies a common source: Theodor Meynert’s conception of a “cortical self.” Our aim is to enlight a stream unified around what we call here “cerebral self.” The Self is thus considered as the cerebral projection or presentation of the body. The specificity of this notion is particularly highlighted by its confrontation to the closely, yet disembodied, notion of “cerebral subject.”